Few American Progressives Joining Ramsey Clark’s Call for Prosecution of US Genocide!

What has been clear to survivors of America’s heartless bombings, invasions, occupations, and covert violence for a long time is that American intellectuals, university professors, widely read authors and journalists, who speak against this carnage, never seem to say or write that Americans should be brought to justice for it. Monopolized corporate media hails and stimulates American demands for 9/11 justice beyond reason and limitless vengeance. Though Americans have taken the lives of uncountable millions in what presidential candidate Ron Paul called undeclared, unconstitutional and therefore criminal wars since Korea onward, the idea of justice for these nations seems inconceivable.

What has been clear to survivors of America’s heartless bombings, invasions, occupations, and covert violence for a long time is that American intellectuals, university professors, widely read authors and journalists, who speak against this carnage, never seem to say or write that Americans should be brought to justice for it. Monopolized corporate media hails and stimulates American demands for 9/11 justice beyond reason and limitless vengeance. Though Americans have taken the lives of now uncountable millions in what presidential candidate Ron Paul called undeclared, unconstitutional and therefore criminal wars since Korea onward, the idea of justice for these nations seems inconceivable.

Internet’s Dissident Voice, which identifies itself as “A Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice,” is the first eminent publication, writer or journalist, this author knows of to have called for the law to be brought down upon American crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

Dissident Voice features at the bottom of each issue a statement and link as follows:

The second, was Nicolas Davies, distinguished author of Blood on our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, who, in a sedate, soft-spoken and kindly twenty-minute plus talk on Russian RTTV stated that Americans involved in the horrendous beyond description decimation of Iraq and more than a million of its population, must be punished. Davis said, as Martin Luther King Jr. had cried out about Vietnam, that Americans must make what reparations for the damage done and pay compensation. Davies noted that not a penny of the 3.5 billion dollars Nixon promised Vietnam has been paid, and how when the International Court of Justice convicted the US over sabotage and mining the harbors of Nicaragua, the US disregarded the judgement as unauthorized.

Action taken by the two American writer-reporters, seems a presage of more widely read authors of anti-imperial literature calling for justice for America’s millions of victims in Asia, Latin America and Africa – especially once the cry for justice resounds from abroad, as it inevitably will, as the United States loses some of it financial clout to keep victims quiet about justice or suffer worse in sanctions.

An interview of yours truly last January by Kim Peterson of Dissident Voice best explains the mind-boggling lack of logic, understanding and compassion for the cry for justice of those suffering the genocidal nature of events that are usually described by antiwar critics as bad or mistaken foreign policy:

Kim Peterson : Recently you have focused on a Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign. DV agrees with the cause 100%, as — obviously — prosecution for war crimes might serve to give pause to war criminals, something that Nuremberg does not seem to have done, as aggression — “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” — has been serially launched by hyper-empire. You have openly been taking issue with some people usually identified as progressives for not having the same focus as you, and this comes across as, with all due respect, bully like and attempting to coerce something that cannot be coerced: solidarity. Why should every social justice activist conform to your stance?

JJ: My stance? I didn’t make the law. Social justice activists should obey the law like everyone else should obey the law, and not be an accomplice, supporter, or accessory after the fact to American mass murder ongoing on for sixty-two years.

I have been taking issue with prominent journalists who expose US crimes but are careful not to call for their prosecution and consistently ignore the 1967 teaching of Martin Luther King Jr. a teaching that was such an enormous threat to investors in war and thievery.

Or to put it more directly, I take issue with them for calling their organizations antiwar while they focus on getting a better cut of the imperialist pie for Americans continuing to kill for Wall St. overseas. Better housing, health care, higher wages, veterans perks, safety from rape of our women training to go kill overseas, homosexual rights, lower taxes, voting rights so minorities can participate in the choosing between two parties promising more war. Look over the daily fare of antiwar journalists and see how many of their articles are about domestic issues while the US crimes against humanity go on unaddressed by them.

Bullying? I realized long ago that my colleagues, and even some of my mentors, have no intention to stop Americans from continuing to murder people in their own beloved countries, more often than not in their own homes. They have no intention, for believing it to be impossible to stop, or being aware that protests have never ended or prevented a war. Most volunteers want to feel better about themselves and present themselves as Americans innocent of war support and participation, which of course is not true. Too many progressive sites avoid taking on the horrific lies of commercial media when so well planted that their liberal sources of funding would be at risk. Example, Libya and Syria.

But in any case, education for education’s sake alone amounts to little or no consequence, and is in effect like prayer without intention to act. All the truth we learned about the real reasons for the invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq et al., has had zero effect upon the continuing massive bloodshed for the same investment power maintenance that no one can stop without law enforcement.

No matter the daily death toll adding to the millions of victims of US Armed Forces, the idea of prosecuting known US crimes against humanity is unacceptable in the peace industry. However, in poor immigrant communities it is felt to be a very logical step and would be God’s compassionate justice. The only people who protested to Al Capone were those in the racket with him. The people of Chicago called for his arrest and prosecution.

My Korean and Vietnamese family members and colleagues see through this contradiction of protesting to, at the same time protecting, supporting and re-electing, leaders overseeing continuing atrocities in poor nations.

Antiwar activists today would not think of spitting on returning soldiers as many activists did in the 1970s. There is no opposition at all to veterans of illegal wars being continuously honored as eternal heroes by re-elected politicians and media anchors for the crimes they committed in poor countries. Today’s peace activists call for support for the troops and rarely, if ever, ask them to stop killing and become conscientious objectors, as martyred Martin Luther King Jr. advised.

Bullying activists who don’t tell their fellow Americans to stop killing my brothers and sisters overseas; bullying activists who don’t call TV anchors and war promoting movie stars like punk Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Tom Hanks, Charlton Heston, John Wayne war criminals for suckering kids into dealing in death and maiming for the lies generated by the investment community; bullying activists who don’t stand up to apostate clergy like Billy Graham blessing just wars and returning coffins?

Bullying, no, I hope not. Sounds too weak. I have been attacking, with all my poor abilities, those masquerading behind words as good guys against crimes they support in a million ways. And I include myself. In 1990s teaching in Vietnam and Korea no one was impressed that I was against the wars. The pitiful little I did, knowing the truth, makes me worse than those who championed the killing in ignorance.

Since my retaking up residence stateside, I have written some three hundred well documented articles aimed at Americans pretending not to support deadly US imperialism. Are progressive imperialists, progressive capitalists any less imperialist, any less capitalist, for being progressively so? Every empire has had its apologists and reformers of the unreformable.

In an America mostly made up of incoming immigrants or descendants of immigrants or colonizers, I have had the good fortune of being sent in the opposite direction. I am a product of my experiences abroad. My heart is always with the purer Peoples my fellow Americans have seen fit to bomb, torture, and exploit.

I am happy Dissident Voice endorses King Condemned US Wars Awareness, and that on the educational website Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now, the clear and simple words of DV’s Co-Editor Kim Petersen, “Justice is required, otherwise what would serve as a brake on future war crimes?” sum up well the more dramatic quotes from Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, Jeremiah Wright, Cindy Sheehan and Cornel West, which I have committed to memory. “America must prosecute its own war criminals”; “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged”; “The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy”; “God Damn America for her crimes against humanity”; “War criminals need to go to prison for what they have done, no pardon”; “Drones are War Crimes!” Too many activists find these blistering remonstrations over the top, even humorous. But your cool succinct description of the powerful effect of the law, brought to bear, cannot be laughed off, and for me is the best incentive for joining a public call for the prosecution of US crimes against humanity.

KP: You write, “Social justice activists should obey the law like everyone else should obey the law”” but that law is almost always crafted by the arch-criminals themselves. Yet what right do governments founded through aggression and genocide — for example, Canada, the US, Aotearoa, Australia — have to formulate and dictate laws. They have violated the very core and sanctity of Natural Law. Insofar as any law is crafted by and just for everyone, then it should be obeyed. However, I submit that since the system is an abomination, since the system is immoral, since the system is wreaking gross injustices and evils, the masses have a legitimate right to resist and to resist in equal measure the violence of the system — the law be damned.

Let me elaborate on what I meant by bullying because it is based on what I read in some emails where a “progressive” was being taken to the task for not calling for prosecution of US war crimes. From the wording and my perspective, it seemed as if the criticism was based on the absence of the call for prosecution, in an article or articles, rather than the fact that the person actually opposed prosecution. It made me wonder if you had contacted that person for their view on whether to prosecute or not — and if they did indeed support prosecution, why did this person not write on the subject. In the event that someone were holding their hand over US war criminals, then they are open to criticism/attack; however, when the person who is being criticized/attacked has not been asked to make known their views, then that sounds unfair, and it borders on bullying.

As far as “support for the troops,” I profess no support for killers. Many are victims of ignorance or just trying to scrape by and make a living. Society owes it to all citizens to provide a decent-paying job, and it owes it to all citizens to be open and up front with all information about warring. I recognize the power patriotism has on many minds. To some extent the duped are responsible for being duped, but the deserving target for greatest scorn is the duper.

As you stated, that duping plays out in every election cycle, but it also played out among some of those names you put forth in your cause because people like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky are among those having advocated a lesser evilist voting strategy — at least in certain constituencies.

JJ: Howard Zinn agreed final responsibility rests on we the people, and he let me use his name in campaigning for everyone to quote from King’s “Beyond Vietnam.” Chomsky wishes me luck to get US crimes prosecuted in my lifetime. Boy, have I ever contacted, even gone to see a few prominent activists, and their view is consistent with my description: “They answer as if throwing up their hands and say no court would ever prosecute US crime.” But they will, Kim! There are hundreds of examples of moving in this direction — the family of the three US citizens that were ordered killed by drones are suing Panetta, Petraeus and two commanders in a federal district court right now — and the NY Times (of all people) is planning to appeal Manhattan District Court’s refusal to open files of “judicious decision’ to murder by drones.

Cindy Sheehan, Angela Keaton, Chomsky, Bill Blum, Kevin Zeese, and Cynthia McKinney insist they wholeheartedly agree, but STILL, to my knowledge, have never urged the public to call for prosecution of the crimes they write about, and I’m grateful David Swanson politely says, “I have a point.”

I am still urging them, Glen Ford, various religion-based King-endorsing groups. But to call for prosecution of the crimes, not individuals beforehand.

Social justice activists should obey those very basic to life laws that are not crafted by the arch-criminals themselves, and be a model for everyone else obeying these basic laws, and not be an accomplice, supporter, or accessory after the fact to American mass murder ongoing on for sixty-two years. Don’t have to worry about resisting the immoral laws crafted by the arch-criminals that are in contradiction to common law, Nuremberg Principles Law and scriptural law. These in-fact-illegal wars will evaporate as the real and true laws are enforced, as did the racist “laws’ of the South with the prosecutions of the crimes against humanity initially in the streets almost silently by a multitude that could not be denied. Social justice activists should not ignore common law, the US Constitution, Nuremberg Principle Laws, The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, and the fiercest injunctions in scripture they live by in their personal life, and be an accomplices, supporters, or accessories after the fact to American mass murder ongoing for sixty-two years.

Not only ignorance, but apathy is also no excuse before the law, both in public court and in the court of our conscience.

I make a practice of memorizing a hell of a lot of quotes that Tom Feeley of Information Clearing House prefaces his current round-up newsletter with.

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” — Plato

“Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.” — Bodie Thoene

“Most Americans aren’t the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might make it right.” — Joseph Sobran, columnist

“By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy — indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self-satisfaction.” — William Osler (Canadian physician, 1849-1919)

KP: Recently you wrote to Michael Moore, “Michael, if we know all this [the crimes perpetrated by the United States], and yet do not call for the full force of the law to be put into effect in prosecution of these crimes against humanity, are we not acting as Accessories After the Fact” [Quoting from the Text – USC Title 18 – CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE click here “ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT = Whoever, knowing that an offense has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact; one who knowing a felony to have been committed by another, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon in order to hinder the felon’s apprehension, trial, or punishment.’ ] .” I submit that following a strict adherence to the law you cited that no judge would find ordinary citizens as Accessories After the Fact. I fail to see in what way Moore “receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment.” I find Moore’s progressivism rather effete; that aside, however, could you explain how Moore is criminally culpable?

JJ: I don’t think that Michael Moore, who gave us that most astounding movie Bowling for Columbine, portraying America’s killer reality, would for a moment want to extricate himself from the “we” in “if “we’ know all this [the crimes perpetrated by the United States], and yet do not call for the full force of the law to be put into effect in prosecution of these crimes against humanity, are we not acting as Accessories After the Fact.”

Michael knows he has continued to make marvelous public education films that await use in prosecuting all the crimes against humanity he has so well documented — deprivation of health care, exploitation of communities, death and destruction abroad, and economic Wall Street crimes, etc. But if Martin Luther King Jr. held himself, along with America, responsible for “US atrocity wars,” why would the extraordinarily, perceptive, talented and incisively compassionate Michael Moore not hold himself as co-responsible and complicit, as the very Obama, Moore saw as necessary to reelect, continues to sign his name to ever new “atrocity wars” — the same kind of US atrocities ongoing since Korea, which, as in the cases of Vietnam and Iraq, he lyingly praises as protective of American freedom. Moore knows otherwise; the wars were illegal, as Ron Paul repeated over and over again on prime time. Moore knows the criminal wars are meant, as King cried out, “for maintaining unjust predatory overseas investments.”

Does it help assuage a conscience that no judge is presently going to indict anyone as an accessory after the fact of crimes for calling for the reelection of a good prospective candidate for Nuremberg judgement?

What seems unheard of today can come about tomorrow: technology racing forward, instant personal world-wide communication, and computers capable of a trillion operations a nano-second. King could not find a judge to prosecute racist crime, but today racist crime is prosecuted. Gandhi could not expect to get a judge to prosecute the crimes of the British Empire, but once the British left indictments were issued. Iranians could not find a court to prosecute the crimes of the Shah that did come to be prosecuted in courts. In all three cases and many more, prosecution took place in the street before it did in court. When the public is heard murmuring in the street about bringing the law to bear on this continuing illegal homicidal it will cause some fright among investors, media, clergy and politicians involved! — as it did when King condemned imperialist capitalism.

Imagine how many parents, right now, are against their young sons killing the poor in their own beloved country far from US shores. How many are against paying the taxes they pay every year that are used to kill charming people and patriots fighting brutal US invasions of their homelands. How many will come to want the lies and adulation of merciless gun play overseas on TV inciting violence on public owned airwaves prosecuted? Well, what is stopping them from speaking up?

KP: Now prince Harry is a clearer case for me. Here is a silver-spoon-in-mouth type that is truly in the military of his own accord, a person who should be as well apprised of what is actually going on in Afghanistan and why it is going on as any government minister or in-the-loop military officer. The question is how does one put royalty on trial for war crimes? They hobnob with the powers-that-be. This actually is asking how one puts power on trial? It is not that simple, and trying to put these big-time war criminals in the docket, in Orwellian fashion, usually finds one brutalized by police and sentenced in court. Splitting the Sky attempted a citizen’s arrest of George Bush Jr when he visited Calgary, Alberta in 2009 and wound up in court himself. (See “Canadian court to sentence Splitting the Sky over attempted Bush arrest,” RT.com, 8 June 2010.)

JJ: You are obviously referring to my article: “Prince Harry Cowardly Murders in Afghanistan as Savage British Have for Centuries.” I have in all my recent articles promoted a call for prosecution of US crimes against humanity from the angle of a particular news event, but always pointing out that selective prosecution of fall guys is not going to do anything except permit the investors behind the wars to continue them. The indictment of pathetic figures of homicidal notoriety like Prince Harry, King Obama, or a mentally challenged Dubya and their entourage, though to be expected, is not fundamental to restoring reason and law in the world.

The failure of the Allied trial of the generals, a few ministers and media propagandist Nazis, was dramatically pointed out by the council for the defense in his famous summation. Watch the Burt Lancaster movie, Judgement at Nuremberg. Ford and DuPont were among those who succeeded in funding Hitler against the wishes of the great majority of the German public who in the beginning saw him as a frightening and freaky nut, and not only for his monstrous plans for communists, the Soviet Union and Jews. Crucial American investment, led by Rockefeller, Harriman, Dulles, Bush, Walker, Kennedy and almost every single large American corporation led by GM and GE, by investing in low-wage German labor and joint ventures, raised an economically prostate Nazi Germany to #1 military power, all the while knowing full well of Hitler’s announced intentions, and already begun actions, against Jews, communists, socialists and for eastward expansion.

My article, “US Economic Facilitation of Holocaust and Middle East Destabilizing Partition,” published in the UK, subtitled – “US Invested Heavily in Hitler Facilitating Holocaust Used Survivors to Destabilize Arabia” documents this basic deceit that childishly blames Hitler for WW II. Though five Nazi media personalities were tried at Nuremberg, no German banker or industrialist was indicted, most certainly because the super heavy involvement of the elite of American society would have come out like gangbusters. Instead of dealing with this basic deceit, we fight to expose each new deceit, new war on the criminal media’s agenda.

There is no excuse for not demanding that our laws be enforced and crimes prosecuted, especially if the crime is the mass-murder of millions of innocent people. Everyone knows laws that are not being enforced do not cease to exist. When I ask and finally challenge my peace activist colleagues, they throw up their hands at me, and say no court would try any of these crimes against humanity like the Vietnam War, as every one didn’t know the present courts are involved in the crimes.

I have come to know personally many activists, and feel I’m spoiling their having a good time. It is the same in Europe. In London with the start of the bombing of Baghdad in an assassination attempt that instead took the lives of a multitude in an air raid shelter, I joined a protest march, but dropped out after twenty minutes. I couldn’t stand the inappropriate laughing and merry making of the well meaning young paraders waving to the onlookers.

I have memorized the resolution on the Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now website, which was neither approved or disapproved at the 2012 Veterans For Peace Convention and at a United National Antiwar Coalition week-end affair:

“Whereas during WW II and the Allied occupation of Germany afterward, we soldiers, our folks back home and the citizens of the many nations Germany invaded, bombed, and occupied, in their hearts, to a great degree, held the German people responsible for the crimes of their soldiers and government,

and

– whereas there be few adult Americans, who are not in some way or another complicit in the crimes against humanity of their brothers and sisters in colonial impoverished nations since WW II,

whereas Martin Luther King Jr. finding no court willing to prosecute racist crimes, successfully led their prosecution in the court of public opinion;

– whereas Mahatma Gandhi finding no court would prosecute the crimes of the British Empire, successfully led their prosecution in the court of public opinion;

– and whereas the people of Iran finding their courts unwilling to prosecute the crimes of the Shah, successfully led their Peoples prosecution in the court of public opinion;

– be it resolved that law-abiding Americans, finding that US courts will not bring the force of common law, statutory law, Constitutional law and Nuremberg Principles law down upon perpetrators of illegal wars on poor people in colonial impoverished nations, that we citizens of all walks of life will seek to lead prosecution of these illegal and homicidal wars in the court of public opinion to punish these crimes against humanity and prevent them from further happening until our courts can do so.”

I am so positive that our being accessories after the fact to US crimes against humanity will soon be realized by a lead segment of the public that will call for prosecution of those US crimes against humanity and allow indictments to fall as they may.

Perhaps, it is more likely that this will be driven from abroad. It won’t be a selective and partial prosecution of particular politicians in office, but an in-depth prosecution of US crimes against humanity that will indict leaders in various areas of US society. David Rockefeller, who through his appointed confidants, Dulles, Kissinger and Brzezinsky has had a hand in all of America’s illegal wars from Korea to Syria, will surely be a star defendant if he manages to live a little longer. At the same time citizens of other NATO nations will call for prosecution of their nations’ participation in crimes against humanity.

With universal deceit in successfully programmed psy-ops for predatory investment maintenance able to easily marginalize the efforts of filmmakers Stone and Moore while greater wars are being prepared by fabulous investments in manufacture and deployment of WMD, I see no other scenario than a dawn of reason and implementation of the Nuremberg and other laws to finally bringing sanity to humanity long savaged by a criminal international banking consensus.

It would be nicer if it could come about before, not after, the multinational war being planned.

At eighty-two I am looking to handing off my campaigns to someone more well-known and capable than I am and returning to music full-time. The educational website Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign features the pertinent laws and a country-by-country color-coded history of US crimes in nineteen and counting countries, as well as the King Condemned US Wars website is there for all to use. No obligation, no request, no organized activity, no money or any commitment asked for.

You are conducting this interview from China, where I came across Siddhartha Buddha’s final admonishment not to trust what you are told by anyone, even himself, above your own discernment. Let people everywhere decide for themselves what can bring back reason in the world, if not the enforcement of laws that protect society from criminal violence.

I recently happened to watch Paul Newman’s desperate plea to the jury in the movie Verdict. It is a piece of visionary poetry worth memorizing.

“You know, so much of time is just lost.

We say, Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true.

And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless.

We become tired of hearing people lie.

And after a time, we become dead” a little dead.

We think of ourselves as victims” and we become victims. We become” we become weak.

We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs.

We doubt our institutions. And we doubt the law.

But You ARE the law. Not some book” not the lawyers” not the, a marble statue” or the trappings of the courts.

See, those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are” they are, in fact, a prayer: a fervent and a frightened prayer.

In my religion, they say, “Act as if ye had faith” and faith will be given to you.”

IF” if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. I believe there is justice in our hearts. “

The above is similar to how Martin Luther King Jr. ended his otherwise fiery sermon and history lesson, “Beyond Vietnam — a Time to Break Silence.”

============================

Jay Janson is an archival research Peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Malaysia Sun; Uruknet; Mathaba.Net; Voice of Detroit; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Ta Kung Bao; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 300 of which are available at: click http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign: and website historian of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining.